UK law blog

Archive for February 23rd, 2007

The Diary of Barrister A: Friday 23 February 07And thus I clothe my naked villainy
With old odd ends stolen out of holy writ,
And seem a saint when most I play the devil.Richard III. 1. 3

The day began with drizzle and was not improved by the arrival of a letter to inform me that I had not been selected to represent a group of Northerners in Parliament. Pity… I rather liked the nightclubs in the town; the girls in short skirts, stilettos and midriff revealing tops – almost a uniform up there – even in winter. I began to wonder how ‘Old Labour/New Labour’ I needed to be. It is all in the balance – a resurgent Tory party under WebCameron, with a fair prospect of seizing marginal labour seats, balanced against the rising menace of Gordon Brown[No blog / no personal website – ? I did find ‘Gordon Brown roofing’] and support returning to Labour when Blair finally goes.

More senior members of the Bar are attracting a fair bit of Press attention for their extra-curricular affairs. The antics of the barrister ‘gigolaw’ seems to have given the fourth estate a taste for scrutinising the, shall we say, ‘social life’ of members of the Bar. Circumspection and discretion must be the way forward.

All to play for. The work streams in at an acceptable rate. The clerks at RedLex Chambers do the businessbut I need to plan. I send an email to my research assistant, ‘R’, who used to work for a well known tabloid; asking her to find out if there are any seriously ill or old MPs who may not make the next two years. I suggest a few names. As an afterthought I asked her to see if anything was ‘known’ about MPs in marginal seats.

I received an email back within minutes with three names. Name 1: “Believed to enjoy dogging – surprisingly” Name 2: “Having affair with his Ukrainian cleaner – visa issues?” and Name 3: “Clean living but dim and rarely turns up for constituency surgeries.” Not that interesting. No serious scandals and not a ‘rent boy’ scandal or public school spliffing episode even hinted at. Christ… how have we been in power for nearly ten years?

Phone Danielle to tell her about constituency rejection. She laughs, which improves my mood. Jim rings up to ask if I would ‘care to attend a Chambers Committee meeting about the new logo’. Easy decision: No.

Lunch with J/Groucho

An hour later, I receive a call from Dick Matlock, constituency party chairman, to tell me that a mistake had been made – the letters sent out yesterday went to the wrong people (the other candidate has the same first name) and that I had, in fact, been selected. Dick is a man of few words, fortunately. No apology – just the raw information. That is the way he likes it and it suits me just fine.

What do you think? Could this catch on? What about the opposite extreme of emotion? Will we be seeing judges laughing, perhaps setting off fire crackers and playing a bugle or trumpet as they sentence someone to life (or in the US – death) for a particularly horrific crime? Hardly….

Moving on…. to why Richard Madely is f*****g furious

Quite a few people ring in every day to The Richard and Judy show in the hope of being selected to answer relatively straightforward questions and pocket £5-7000. The hosts even help them on ocassion. The problem is that quite a few people ring in when there is absolutely no chance of them being selected as the contestant because the quiz operator, apparently, selects the contestant fairly early on in the programme. People ring throughout the programme because they are encouraged to do so by the hosts. Channel 4 and Cactus TV (Production company) share the profits from the phonecall revenue. The hosts have apologised. They were not aware that this practice was going on. Richard Madeley said: “I feel f***ing furious about this and so does Judy. We’re livid about it. But I think it’s a cock up, not a conspiracy. Everybody who has been affected will get their money back.” The Sun

So…on that note it is time for a carbon footprint certified, Birdflu free, safe, honourable Caption Competition

The picture (Left!) for this caption competition comes from the leader in The Sun today. The link to the story did not work – so I am linking to The Sun

The Prize? A bottle of Vino from the caption competition sponsor Corney & Barrow – who have been very sporting about my wish for this blog to be supported by a wine merchant!

Rules are straightforward: Write a caption in the comments section. 2. If I decide that your caption is the best, you win! 3. There is no appeal. 4. Relatives of Charon may not enter – Charon is also excluded. 5. Absolutely no phonecalls.

The winner of the last caption competition sponsored by The Carbolic Smokeball is….

“It’s OK, John, you don’t look Brazilian”

Comment by Rob Falconer — Thursday, February 8, 2007

Rob… I have emailed you – please let me have details of address etc. You will soon be the proud owner of…..this wonderful statue donated by The Carbolic SmokeBall Company

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